Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the podcast about Lighting Matters. Our unflinching conversations uncover the nuances and complexities which shape the craft of lighting design.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: We explore the pivotal whys behind a lighting designer's choices and find honest answers to your most challenging lighting questions. Because lighting matters.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Hey, I'm Lisa Reid with Reid Burkitt Lighting Design. And we're so glad to have you here on the Lighting Matters podcast.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah, this is Avi Moore with more lights, and we are excited to just share Lisa and my thoughts today.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we realize we've been talking to you a lot and we've been talking to other people, but we never really properly introduced ourselves. So I always like to start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. And so I want to know, where did Avi Moore come from and why is he in lighting design?
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Oh, geez, you're asking me first. Okay. So, you know, the joke of it is I always start with sticking your finger in an electric outlet. And you had that lightning idea. But in all seriousness, really kind of. I fell in love with the theater. Live in the same area that I went to high school, moved back here, and went to New Trier High School, and we did nine productions a year in high school. And I mean, my. My theater days go back farther back, but New Trur was really the best. And at New Trier, those nine productions, we had $5,000 budgets per show. Then I went to Kansas. Loved it. Fellow Rock Chuck. All right. And went in as a theater major. And KU's budget for five productions a year was $2,000 for all of the lighting all year round for all five shows.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: So you had a bigger budget in high school?
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: That. That includes lamp replacements. Right. This is still incandescent world. Right. And we didn't really have a lot of. We can use manufacturer's name. Right. We didn't have source fours. It was all still 6 by nines and 6 by twelves and 6 by 16s. Color scrollers. Can't get those anymore. But anyway, I applied and I think we've talked about this, and I'm still in search of the Lighting Dimensions magazine from around 1990. I think that'd be about 2000. Where Schuler shook was running an ad for a senior lighting designer. And I applied. I sent a CD with my portfolio and went back to Chicago, met Carla, who now works with you.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yes, Carla and I met in college when we were 18. Anyway, go on.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: In college at Kansas. See, like, see, it all comes Back to I should be wearing my KU shirt today, right?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Where's my Jayhawk?
[00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah, no Jay. I used to have a Jayhawk calendar behind me. Anyway, Carla told me what classes to go take back at ku and I got my perfect professor to agree to modify my degree to Architectural and Theatrical Lighting Design. So I still had to take makeup, but I did not have to take script analysis or directing. And I had to take Calculus one and Archie one and some of those other classes. And I was there when Dr. Moick was there and spent a lot of time in the VR world, which was a big thing down at. At the theater department. We were doing a lot of VR and then came back to Chicago. I actually interned for Schuler Shook in the summer, designed their office, worked on Millennium Park. I was uninvited back for many reasons. It's kind of probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. Cause I joined John Featherstone at light switch for 20 some odd years. Still own the company. I still own shares of Light Switch, but decided right before COVID to go off on my own and go back to more lights. And we were able to keep all the clients because it was independent office. It's basically a franchise. And been doing this now, the more lights thing officially since right before COVID was 10-1-20. What was that? 2020? No, 20. 19.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: 19. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's amazing.
I think that theatrical background, I always admire the people who have that. And I even did some volunteering just at my church with the Lightboard just to learn a little bit about what, you know, what you grew up knowing. That's really great.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: You know, I have to credit Bob Shook with the best line, I think. And I won't. It's not perfect. But this thought comes from him. The difference between architectural lighting and theatrical lighting is. And a theatrical lighting designer can slide the fixture down the pipe. And in the modern days, you can change a lens barrel, right? You want a 26 degree, you can go to a 36 degree, you can go to a 5 degree. An architectural lighting designer better darn know exactly where that thing needs to go and what it should be years before you even start to build the building, right? And I think that's a key element. But you know what? Other than that, light is light. It doesn't matter if it's a theater, a stage, a bridge, a hotel, a restaurant. I mean, there's different applications of light, but light is light.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: I know we talk about that a lot. Like facade lighting of whatever building type it Is is still facade lighting. And light behaves the way light behaves. I think in theatrical you get the immediacy though of getting to see what happens when you slide that fixture down the pipe. And you just, there's, there's some immediacy in your, in your training that's so helpful for then later going and planning for things years ahead of installation.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And my, my whole team is theatrically based and theatrically educated. And what I have found in the past of, you know, hiring people and having people in part of the firm is that a theatrical lighting person that I've met understand the art of light. They know what it does. Right. They can understand the art. Math is easy. Math you can figure out. And there's tools and all kinds of things to figure out the math.
And you know, again, back in the day, the why you would use a, you know, T5, there's T8 or HH, all those different sources. Right. Where in the theater we just used incandescent. It was just the way it was. But there's that art element. And I remember an IES, the 100 year anniversary of IES. And I remember some students from a school that was very. That continues to be very popular in education for lighting designers. Not theatrical, architectural. And they saw a.
ETC scroller. They had that moving light that was incandescent and had a scroller on it. Forget what it was called. But the students were all sitting around looking at it and they're like, oh, that's how color mixing works. And I remember asking this group because, you know, I was out of school already, and I remember asking this group, so do you know what the difference is between additive and subtractive color mixing?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: And they said no. It's like, wait, wait, wait. How are you learning about light and not understanding? Like, to me, one of the most fundamental things I learned in high school about lighting, right. That when you mix the two gels, they do something. But if you put the two gels in front of them each other in the light fixture, it's something else. Right. It's a fundamental thing. I don't know. It was interesting, but I just, I love it. There's one other story I love telling is we did the Cherry Orchard at the University of Kansas and they used the entire stage. So the Crafton Prior theater, I think I may have that wrong. But in section is perfectly square. So it's like 60ft deep and 60ft tall. But then it's a proscenium arch. So you got like, I forget how wide it is. Anyway, they used the whole stage and they did these, you know, columns for the Cherry Orchard. Very long play. Not one of my favorites. But the first scene is like 45 minutes long and the sun has to rise. And I used every single light fixture they had. Independently controlled, independently dimmed, and I had an amber to blue shift that happened over 45 minutes. And I remember the director coming up to me during the first dress rehearsal and he said, what's going on? Like, when's the lights gonna change? And all I did was hit back and the whole stage would, you know, it didn't make any noise, but like it just shifted to the other color. He's like, whoa. Okay. I didn't even notice. I was like, that's the whole point. It's a 45 minute light cue that changes, that has a sunrise.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: And there was a lot of arguing of why do you need to use every single fixture? And you know, these are 2K Fresnels everywhere on individual circuits. And yeah, it was fun stuff, but.
But I digress. Lisa, so we know you went to Kansas, but how did you get into this and how did you fall upon architectural lighting?
[00:09:58] Speaker B: I mean, when I go all the way back. It started in my sandbox when I was about five.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: That was where I spent all my time, actually. I like to tell the story about my 7 year old neighbor who would also build things with me in my sandbox. But if an airplane went over, he dropped everything and was eyes to the sky. And he now works for NASA and wow. I'm in, you know, architectural field. I think that's pretty crazy how that was in us from childhood.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: From the beginning. From the beginning you were building and he was looking up. That's crazy. That's so cool.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: In fifth grade, I was drawing floor plans. During all my free time, I wanted to be an architect. So I went to KU for architecture. And we were drawing a lot of pictures and I heard about. I came from a small town in Missouri and so I hadn't heard of architectural engineering until I got to school. And so I was kind of watching those people. I was like, okay, we're over here drawing pictures. And whatever I do is always wrong. The studio critics are always telling me that I should have designed something different. And there's those engineers over there. Maybe what I wanted to be was an architectural engineer and I just didn't know it. So second year I changed my major to architectural engineering. And I thought that I would be a structural engineer. I was going to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, you know, took a concrete structures class, and I wanted to gouge out my eyeballs. I hated it so much.
This is not what I want to do. So I needed the art that lighting allowed, and I needed the science being able to get the right answer that lighting also provides. So I needed the art and science. And from there, I actually began my career as an engineer. Because of the economy, it was just, you know, I was lucky to get a job. My colleagues were going to work at the Gap, Banana Republic.
Yeah. So I was just happy to get a job at an engineering firm. And I started working. And about five years into my career, I gave the little spiel that I always gave to everyone, like, oh, I'm an engineer, but what I really love is lighting design. And someone called me out, like, stopped me. It was actually Tom Scott. He stopped me and said, wait, if you want to do lighting design, everybody's hiring. And, you know, it just hadn't occurred to me that, oh, the economy has changed and there are positions available now. So that's when I made the jump and went to work. Actually moved my family to California and went to work for Tip Israel at Lighting Design alliance and really learned the craft there, learned how it's different from engineering.
In engineering, we were very focused on calculating light levels on the top of a desk and picking fixtures. That's what I thought lighting design was. And I learned so much more about space and the way light impacts space and thinking about spaces in three dimensions. And it was before we had all these 3D modeling tools, too. So you're looking at plans and predicting what that space is going to look like when it's built.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: It's like using the imagination to experience the light in that space.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Right.
But I have to admit, I also thought that we were going to be designers and we were going to sit around under a tree and think about what we were going to create.
And instead it was a little like dry cleaners. It was like in and out and get that project done and respond to this. And so it had to become second nature. It wasn't something that we had time to deliberate on. So, yeah. And then life happened, kids. That's a big part of my story and my company's story, really. So I took a couple of different careers. I taught lighting for interior designers for a little bit. I worked for a lighting rep for a few years, looking for the flexibility that I needed because the lighting design profession was then and is sometimes it feels like even more now. So demanding and so deadline. Driven. But I missed design while I was away from it. And so ultimately, when my kids were old enough to make a sandwich and understand Mom's on a deadline. I will help you in 10 minutes. I started my firm. So that was 13 years ago.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: And then you teamed up with Randy, or how did that.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah, two years ago, two and a half years ago, we merged and formed Reid Burkitt Lighting Design. And that's just been a really. It's been really great. I like to tell the story of my senior year at ku. Randy came and critiqued our projects. So he was. He was the first real lighting designer I ever met. And now two years ago, we merged our firms. So it's pretty fun.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: That's awesome. I mean, it's amazing how it kind of comes full circle, right, that Randy was the first lighting designer you met and now you're both running a practice together. I mean, that's pretty incredible.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: It is. These stories are fun.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: So you were talking a little bit about the art and science. The right brain, left brain. I always get confused which side is what part of it.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: My dad was an art teacher. The right brain is the creative one.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Right is the. So I feel like people lean a little right or a little left. Like you never right in the middle. Do you lean a little bit more right, A little bit more left?
[00:15:49] Speaker B: That's tough. I would say probably anytime I take those personality tests or anything, I'm always right in the middle. But honestly, I really do like process and I like organizing things. So I probably lean a little left. Yeah. How about you?
[00:16:07] Speaker A: I definitely lean a little left. It's why I have the staff. I do. So they have that, you know, pie in the sky. I can't even like, oh, we could magically hang a fixture from the ceiling. Like, no. There's a ugly ass aircraft cable and a cord that goes to that fixture and the canopy.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: We always ask about canopies.
Manufacturers will come in with pictures of their fixtures and they're cut off before they get to the ceiling because they don't want to show you how it attaches to the ceiling.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. We had a school where the like $1,200 light fixture, we bought hundreds of them. And the detailing of the suspension to the ceiling was just ridiculous. I was like, wait, huh?
You didn't, you didn't think this through. I was just. I was like, we figured it out. But it was just one of those, like, how. Why, why are you. Why do you let the marketing department get that? So, yeah, I lean technical. I Think it really comes from that short stent I did being a project manager for a theatrical dimming system company. But I also like to know how things go together. I'm very much a problem solver. Right. And I think you were working in the sandbox as a kid. I was taking apart boomboxes and rewiring my mom's house. Right.
I think I could have been an electrician in another life or, you know, it person. I've built my own computers in college and things like that. So there's that technical aspect of this that I really love. But what about. I was going to answer this question, but I want to ask you this question first. What about what you do excites you? What. And it doesn't have to be one thing. What gives? Lisa Reed Working in a particular day or week. And maybe it doesn't come every day or every week, but where's the excitement? What's the those things that excite you?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: It's people. And so whether that is creating a space that people really love or creating or providing. I get especially excited when we get to work on projects. For an example is one we did here in St. Louis that's pillars of the Valley. And it's an art installation memorializing a neighborhood that was raised to the ground in the 1950s, that it was a primarily black, thriving neighborhood that was destroyed and then forgotten. And this art installation sort of brings it back to memory. So doing that for people is what I get excited about. And so then that also translates to the team. Right. And I've recently been reminded to kind of refocus on making sure that everyone who works at Reid Burkitt Lighting Design is working, you know, in what they do best and what makes them feel the best and what excites them about the profession of lighting design. So kind of a weird answer, but it's, it's creating something that excites people.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: I have a lot less interesting answer to that question.
I like the problem solving, the resolution, the, you know, fixing things part of it. And I think a lot of that comes to the education part of what we have to do every day. We. We recently spoke at the IES conference about Dolly lighting controls. And during that session we talked about a residential high rise we did here in Chicago that we were pushing for Dolly controls because we truly believe it is the least expensive way to do it. And the electrician was saying, no, no, no, that's way too expensive. 0 to 10 will be cheaper. You know, it's a resident high rise, so nobody cares about anything other than make it as inexpensive as possible.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: First cost. Yeah.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: And through the process, you know, the client agreed to listen to us and the electrician agreed to price our option. And their option, the long and short of it is that 0 to 10 was a 32% increase in cost over what we specified. And I love that. I love.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: That's such a great story.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: I mean, I love the education both of the contractor and I was hearing a lot of backstory, right. This contractor is trying to find ways to make our solution more expensive, and there just wasn't. I mean, they were calling the different lighting controls manufacturers. Can you tell me how this would be more expensive? And they're like, it isn't. The equipment's cheaper. There's less work you have to do. Like there's nothing we can do. So I love that. And maybe part of it's just being right.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: I do like being right. That's why I changed my major.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: I mean, I think Derek said it best. It's. It's allow those uncomfortable situations and just sit there and be like, yeah, yeah. You really don't know what you're talking about. Thank you.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: I mean, what's so amazing is he was the contractor was working to prove you wrong and couldn't. I mean, that's just. Wow. Such a good story.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Their first shot to be for those who weren't there or haven't seen it. And we need to release this white paper about the project. Actually, if you're going to be at the Dolly alliance summit, we'll be there talking about it coming up. I don't know if we'll release this by then. I don't know what's going to happen. But when they gave us the pricing back, they marked up the Dolly light fixtures, I believe it was 23.5% and the 0 to 10 volt fixtures, 15%. So when we rectified and had the same markup on both, that's when the 0 to 10 fixtures were $100 cheaper. All of them together, you know, like a $185,000 package, whatever the number was, you know, happy to share it if somebody wants it, but it was great. I mean, so I love that. I love that piece of it. And, you know, we're working with a developer who has built multiple buildings. Right. And I guess it. It comes to something you and I have chatted a lot about lately is this developer has worked with multiple lighting designers. I think they've actually worked with one in particular quite a bit. And they've never had somebody go that far to defend their design. I mean, we, we fall on a sword to protect our specs and sometimes we get let go. But you know why? My feeling is I don't want to be involved in a job that's not going to go down the path that we think is best for our customer. And we've also chatted about this. It's hard. Contractual privity is a new phrase that I'm using more often. Right. Your contract may not be with the end user customer, but you're talking to them.
We won't do something that we don't think is right for the person who's going to use the space in the end. And I just. But that education piece, you know, that's something I think.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: I mean, you said that this developer had worked with other lighting designers and maybe it's just. I don't know what causes that, but I mean, I think in general, lighting designers are all that way. They really want what's right for the job. They want what's right for the end user. And I think that's why I like the profession, like the group of people so much, because there is a purity of caring and wanting what's right for the design among lighting designers that I really appreciate.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: You know, it's really interesting, right? We kind of had this realization that we're in a way a one trick pony, right? We deal with light, we light spaces. We light all kinds of different spaces, right? And you name, we started this. Light is light. It doesn't matter the space type, but we do lighting, right? And there's probably two parts to it. You could argue lighting and lighting controls, but other than that, that's kind of.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: It'S kind of narrow.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: That's a shtick, right?
What other profession that we deal with or that you can name is like that in the construction world, right? If you think about like architects and interior designers, right, they're dealing with lots of different finishes, lots of different materials, lots of different elements. I mean, just behind me we can look at five different things, right? Paint, drywall, trim, window shade, furniture. And they can be. They. They become passionate about certain elements, right? And there's lawsuits to some of those passions of. For things on glass. The thing in San Diego I always bring up to people, but you know, that passion ends up lying in like one element, right? Like, oh, we gotta have this. You could go pick a different paint. I don't care. Right before a lighting designer there, I think. And Joe kind of talked about this a little bit too. That's. I kind of like that. This is a little bit into our generating this podcast. Joe talked a little bit about, you know, having your things in a project that you're passionate about versus other elements. But I think that a lot of people just look at it all as lighting, and the passion gets confused in a financial connection. And because it's this one, all we do is light, Right? All we do is light. And everyone other than the lighting designer is financially tied to what that light fixture is.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: So the passion gets confused, I think, all too often by owners, contractors, developers, end users, whoever it is, because they just don't understand that we're passionate because we care that much about this one thing that connects everything in your building.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Together about the light and not about the fixture particularly. And I think, yeah, that's where a lot of the confusion lies, for sure.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: How do we help people understand this better? How do we, you know, this is. We've been talking about internally. How do we. I think when we get the opportunity, it's easy to explain to a client, like, look, here's my books. I don't sell any of it. What do you want? But I think even before you get to that point, there's a global misunderstanding.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: There is. I think there are a couple of things, a couple of ways of answering that. And one is that not everybody's going to get it. And do we want to evangelize them or do we just want to work with the clients who get it? That's one way of looking at it. And. Yeah. Then the other thing which you and I have talked about is how do we, as a profession, how is it not just AVI and Morolites out there trying to help people understand what we do? And it's not just Lisa and RVLD trying to justify our profession. How do we organize as a group and advocate for the profession? And I think tied with that. I want to know before we jump too deep into that, what parts of the job do you not like?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: How do I say this? Fighting the silly schedule. So let me. I'm trying to formulate this the best way. So let me explain. This isn't the first time somebody's designed a building, but it seems like every single time we work with the same team, design a different building, the schedule to release a document will be the end of the month. Everybody's going to release something at the end of month. Great. So that means, architect, you're going to be done the beginning of the month. Right. So I have two weeks to design this and give it to the engineer for two weeks. I mean, that seems kind of nice, right? And yes, it does.
It just drives me bonkers. Like, I can't. I'm dealing another situation right now where there's a big client meeting coming up. And this, this team's been working on the job for months.
Months. Got hired six weeks ago. Client meetings coming up. They want to see everything before the client meeting. Absolutely. Makes sense. Three weeks before the client meeting. And they want to see every reiteration and be able to like, da, da, da, da. It's like. So I just, I get, I lose myself in these moments of the unfair schedule I think it is. And that just, it drives me bonkers and I don't have a solution. I also, I got to add 1 more 0% interest free loans.
What do you mean by that?
So I don't know about you, Lisa, but my credit card will charge me 32 and a half percent interest if I don't pay it on time. But apparently every single one of my customers, I would say 99% of my customers don't agree to 30 days. And 60 days becomes kind of a fantasy. 90 days kind of gets, oh, maybe we should.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Maybe it's time to pay this bill. Maybe.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: You know, I just don't understand how this. And like, I'm 45. I just turned 45. I've been running this business for 21 years. I just don't understand how it happened before 21 years ago. How, how did the industry allow this to happen? And it's not just more lights or lighting designers.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: It's not, it's not just lighting, it's the whole AEC industry. Yeah.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: I gotta tell you, every single business person I talk to, every single, like my, any group I go to, they're like, huh?
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yes. Any accountant or bookkeeper, they're like, whoa, your receivables are out of hand. You need to fix this. And I was like, okay, come fix our industry, please.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think schedule is a key thing that drives me bonkers. But also, I mean, let me add one other thing about the pricing thing, and I will speak for more lights. You know, so we don't have any issues or whatever. But you know, if somebody were to come to me and say, I will pay you in 30 days, you're not going to argue about a lighting designer being too expensive. But if you're out 90 days or you're signing pay when paid agreements, the business, the business of it, whether more lights, whoever does that means Payroll happens every two weeks. You're going to pay whenever you get paid. So you, as the customer are going to pay interest on payroll because that's the only thing we sell is time over, you know, 90 days, potentially. And, you know, if people think lighting design is too expensive, well, fix that. Like, that's super easy, super cheap. I'll take a credit card at 3%, you know, just so I could pay MasterCard or Amex or whatever. Bring it on. So anyway, those are my two, like, drives me nuts. How about you, Lisa?
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Oh, those are two really good ones. I don't know. I think the only thing that's left is something we already addressed at least once on the podcast. No, we've addressed it a few times. It's just pricing and the way things are set up so that it's impossible for me to tell my client what my design is going to cost them. And it's. It becomes embarrassing.
It's a real frustration and it's a lot of time spent to approximate for them what their project is going to cost. And if it was all just transparent, it would make our lives and everyone else's lives really much easier. It just felt grueling. It has felt hard. It has felt like everybody's against us when it comes to what products get on the job and the price of those products. Products.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Well, and again, I think it just can't be said enough. A, independent lighting designer such as your firm and my firm do not sell the products we sell time period. Whether you buy manufacturer A or manufacturer B, we don't care as long as manufacturer A will produce produce the light you need in your space equal to manufacturer B produce the light needed in that space. And there are A and Bs that are equal. And there are options to find savings from changing from manufacturer A to manufacturer B. And there are ways to save when you, the customer, understand that you're willing to give up xyz, abc, whatever it might be. And our firms know how to do those things.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Right. We can tell you what you're giving up, what you're gaining, what you're. Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: And we're the only ones who can do that independently on your project. There is nobody else involved in the project who can provide that independent, non financially connected statement on A versus B and why you should pick A or why you should pick B. Or maybe there's even this C, D, E, F, G option. But you as the owner, the customer, have to be willing to take five minutes to have that conversation because it's going to affect what that wall and that shade and that furniture looks like.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: Right, right. And it might. I mean, the other thing that I always come back to is it might not be just swapping out one fixture for another. You know, we can give you a different design that will cost less or whatever the case may be. So.
So, yeah, that's what we like. That's what we don't like. What do we do to fix the things we don't like?
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Well, you know, it's interesting. This has been an interesting year for more lights. And we have tried a lot of different things in the pricing world to control pricing. We actually started a new service called Acquisition Services, where we will manage procurement. We do not procure. We are not interested in that. There are firms that will do that, and we wish them all the luck in the world. I don't want to deal with that. But we have some great distributor friends like Lisa's husband and some other friends here that, you know, we could call and say, hey, here's a list of stuff. Price it, Give us a quote, by the way. Also include a line item that says we're going to receive it all, open it, make sure it's not broken, and then send it when you need it. What a great service. Right?
[00:36:04] Speaker B: And I mean, isn't that what distributors do?
[00:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah, but they don't get. I think a smart. And a smart distributor is like the best thing on a project rep. Agencies, separate conversation, great people. Anyway, but. So what we do is we help get a price. Here's a bill of materials. Here's how much you can go buy it for. Send them a credit card for $150 million, whatever that fixer package is. Right. Whatever you want to do. And we charge 5%. Whatever it is, I don't care. You're going to spend 50 bucks. You're going to spend $5 million, whatever it is. But it takes a lot of time to manage that. It's kind of like what Derek was saying. When you have an owner wanting to buy light fixtures, it doesn't work out really well because somebody has to manage it. And we've done it a lot and we end up managing it, but we don't end up charging for it. So this is our new way of charging for it. And it's worked out.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Do clients take it? Did you have some. Some clients that are interested, they see the value.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: We've had two that have taken it, and, you know, it's totally open book. And here's the pricing rock and roll. Right. But I Think I think the core to your question, Lisa, My belief is this podcast. I don't think there's anybody else talking about the world of independent lighting design like you and I have. And I want to say thank you for being a part of this. And I think that we, we are doing what I think the industry needs at this point, what our firms need and all those other small practices and big ones too.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's a good point though that you just made. Lighting practices, even the big ones are small businesses. And you know, I do love that our profession supports one another. You know that you and I are sitting here as competitors, working together to improve the industry. That's something you don't get in all spaces. Right. So I do love that. Just pet peeves thinking about things you said. You know, the podcast is doing this and for some reason randomly jumped into my head, you know, when I'm filling out a government form and they want to know what it is that we do. And there's, there's not a box for architectural lighting design. There's no, you know, I mean, I'm so excited when I see the one that says other specialized design services.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Oh, that's what we do.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: We use HubSpot. And they wanted to know, you know, what our business is. Consulting. No, that's. It drives me nuts that we're non existent. Drives me nuts that Golden Key awards were just recently announced on a number of hospitality projects around the globe. Beautiful projects. I'm sure there's a lot of lighting designers involved. We will never know. They list the interior designers, the architects and the owners.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a huge one. I mean, and how often are the photos of those award winning projects taken at night where there's this beautiful lighting? That's what they're showing off.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Our project on that list is that way desk photos. Looks amazing. I mean it was a really ugly hotel until, you know, we worked with the design team to re. But it's just like when. And that's one of those things that I think a trade organization of ours could easily see that. Or somebody like me could email it to them and say, hey, this just came out. Send an email out to the membership, find out who designed them and then release a press release. Don't spend any money to release the press release. Just put it out on LinkedIn.
These are the lighting designers that were involved.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:40:02] Speaker A: In these projects. It's amazing how light makes these photos possible. Right? Like you could just do a tagline like that forever. Light makes these images Possible.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: That's great. Let's do it.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: And let's not forget about. And we've just been playing with this. I don't know how you do it. Luminaire number one, the big shiny thing in the sky. I mean, we are constantly getting involved in these projects. Now it's like, oh, no, it's all daylight. It'll be fine. It's an airport. It's deep. The lights will be on at full bright to augment all your daylight. And there is no way you're putting in automated shades into an airport. I mean, we've seen it, but this is an airport that doesn't maintain anything.
So automated shade's probably not a good idea, but you. Right. We have to light with Luminaire number one, and that's still lighting design.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: All right.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: What do you think, Lisa? I wonder if we should wrap it up for this one and carry on. You know, I think we could care. We could chat more and more, but.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: I think we can. I feel like we need to issue a challenge to close it out.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: You know what? Let's do this. How about an extension of what I just brought up a challenge to. And I actually am going to do this as soon as we're off the podcast. The challenge is, if you see a project on LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever it is, endeavor to find out who the lighting designer was and post for them. And I'm going to do this as soon as I get off the podcast. I saw an architect post about the work that's going on at the Shedd Aquarium, and I know our good friends at Available Light. Are the lighting designers not listed in the list of seven, eight firms. They had the engineers. They had a number of different people. They had the exhibit designers. But Available Nut Light was not on the list. And great competitors. Love Stephen, love Derek, love the team over there, but no listing of Available Light. And that's wrong.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: It is.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: So that's what I. That's. That's a challenge I would put out there. Repost to the channel, repost to the Lighting Matters group and ask people who designed it. And let's start publishing and posting and responding to any project that's out there that has light, which is every project.
[00:42:34] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Yeah.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Who the light designer is.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: I love that. And then I would just say, anybody who has anything to add to this conversation about what we need as an industry, what do you love and what do you hate about the industry? Go ahead and comment on this episode, and we'll start to engage and see what we can do to increase advocacy for our profession.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: In our profession, where do we want comments? I think we want comments in LinkedIn, correct? That's a great place.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah. But wherever you put them, we'll find them.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: And we're going to make this more often where you're going to get Lisa and Avi just chatting through things and we hope you all will respond to our call to action here.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Thanks, everybody.
[00:43:20] Speaker B: Thanks, Avi. Thanks for listening, everyone.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Thanks, Lisa. Talk to you soon.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Lighting Matters as we wrap up, we want to reiterate how much we value your time, and we hope you found it as much fun to listen to as we had creating it. Remember to like it and share this content with your friends and colleagues.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: The opinions expressed are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the sponsors. Our content has generally application, but we recommend obtaining personalized guidance from a professional IALD lighting designer such as RBLD or morelights for your next endeavor.
